These Days
by mammothluv
Summary: Two old friends, Anna Devane and Frisco Jones, run into one another on the pier. This takes place just after the 2/27/13 episode of General Hospital in which Anna spends time in the interrogation room remembering Robin on the one year anniversary of her death.


**Disclaimer:** _General Hospital_ belongs to ABC and the show's creators. I'm not making any profit and no copyright infringement is intended.  
**Notes:** This story is a little older than _Fault Lines_ and originally posted elsewhere but I thought I'd upload it here too for the sake of having all my GH fic here.

It would be cliche to say Anna Devane looks the same as she did over twenty years ago, cliche and untrue. Still, there's a quiet intensity to her that takes Frisco back, fills him with all the nervous anticipation a young rookie looking at his chief expectantly again.

She's slumped against a post and staring out at the water, her expression telling him her mind is somewhere other than the present too. He hates to break the silence but there's no walking away now that he's seen her and he's been on the receiving end of enough blows from her to know it's best to announce himself when he's at a safe distance.

"Commissioner Devane, I was wondering when I might run into you."

There's a split second when her right hand lands on the gun he knows she's wearing at her hip. But then she must process whose voice she's just heard. Her head turns quickly in his direction, her eyes locking with his and widening.

She's the first person in town to smile when she sees him. It's wide and genuine even if it doesn't match the melancholy written across the rest of her face. They both move at the same time to bridge the distance between them and her arms are strong around him as she pulls him into a hug.

"I'm pretty easy to find you know," she says, her words muffled by her position against his chest. "I was beginning to feel insulted."

He pulls back. His hands are still on her shoulders but he's far enough now that he can get a proper look at her. He doesn't miss the redness around her eyes. The hint of moisture on dark lashes reminds him of the solemn scene he interrupted. She's older, sadder - she'd likely say the same of him - and she's also as striking as she ever was.

She rolls her eyes at him and places both hands on his chest just long enough to push him away. For a moment he entertains the possibility she can read his thoughts.

"I can see you getting nostalgic and mushy, Jones, and I haven't got the energy for it tonight."

"Hey, I was just think how good you look," he replies, tone all charm.

His charm never did impress her. She simply rolls her eyes again and follows that with a firm, "Shut up." His chest aches with the warm familiarity of it.

She turns her back then and shuffles away from him to take a seat on the edge of one of many crates that line the dock. She wraps her arms around herself and rests her elbows on her knees. It's not exactly an invitation but he sits down in the space left next to her on the crate anyway, nudges her with his shoulder once before leaning back into a space just inches from her.

It's several minutes before she speaks again but the silence is companionable. It's as though sitting here side by side has erased the distance and years that separate their friendship from the lives they lead now.

"It's been a year," she says.

He knows what she means, who she means, but, for reasons his brain doesn't fully understand, his lips refuse to move to form the name. He waits for her to do it instead and eventually she does.

"A year since Robin..." Anna's voice breaks and Frisco doesn't wait any longer. He puts an arm around her shoulder, pulls her closer to him. They sit like that for several minutes, her almost completely still in his arms. Despite the earlier break in her voice, she doesn't cry. The only sound is her steady breathing intermingled with his and overlapped with the lapping of waves at the edge of the pier. He only lets go when she begins to pull away.

"I'm sorry, Anna. I should have been there for her funeral." Memories of Robin float through his mind one after one - her on a dock much like this one clutching balloons on her birthday, that brilliant smile that she could so easily turn on to convince him to let her do just about anything she wanted, her easy laughter as she stood on his feet to dance with him on his and Felicia's wedding day. Those memories are chased by a picture of Georgie, one he spotted on Maxie's mantle, a gorgeous smiling girl he never really knew. "I should have been here for a lot of things."

"It wouldn't have mattered," she responds flatly.

"Ouch." He says it with humor but her words cut in a way he was entirely unprepared for.

"I didn't mean that the way it sounded. Just that not a lot mattered to me in those days just after she died. And I'm feeling a bit maudlin today which doesn't make me the best company."

"It's understandable," he assures her.

"Maybe, but I'm really... I'm very tired of crying right now so let's talk about you. What brings you back to our fine city after such a long absence?" Her voice is still rough but she tries for a light tone, gives him a half-smile as she asks.

"Maxie."

"Really?" she says. Her eyes narrow in a way he recognizes as her zeroing in on something that doesn't quite fit, some untruth or half-truth that won't elude her for long.

"Okay, Maxie, but Felicia too. When I got her message about Maxie being pregnant, it hit me how much I'd given up. How much I wanted them back." It sounds hollow, even to him, but it's the truth. These realizations he stumbled into decades too late are all he has to offer. "And I know she can't be happy without me either, certainly not with a nobody like Scorpio."

"No." Anna's response is strong and her voice thick with emotion. "No, you don't get to do that."

"Anna, I..."

"I'm not going to give you a lecture about your feelings for Felicia and how you express them, Frisco. You do what you want there. But you respect Mac Scorpio. He raised your daughters. He raised emour/em daughters. He's the one who loved them when we weren't there and for that he's a better man than all of us." Her face is all sharp lines and anger - this is familiar too, him on the receiving end of her temper - she raises a finger just inches from Frisco's face in emphasis. "You respect him."

He bristles, lets his own anger color his response. "Come on, Anna. Give me a break here. I come back and he's got my wife and my daughter. I'm supposed to just accept that?"

She does not acquiesce. There is no sympathy in her tone when she replies. "He didn't steal anything from you Frisco. Please do not sit here and insult my intelligence by trying to play the victim. You left and he stepped up. Put your feelings for Felicia aside for a moment. You could spend the rest of your life thanking Mac for all he did for your girls and it wouldn't be enough."

"Anna, I'm not saying I'm not grateful but..." He allows himself to trail off as the rage that was building within him flattens. She's always had a way of showing him when he doesn't have a leg to stand on and this moment is no exception. He sighs, leans back against the wall behind him. The brick is rough and cold against his back even through the layers of his jacket and shirt. "I've missed having you yell at me."

"Oh, shut it," she replies, waving a hand in his direction as if to dismiss the comment.

"No, I mean it. These days there aren't a lot of people in my life who care enough to yell at me. There aren't a lot of people in my life period."

"That's what happens to people like us, I suppose, if we're not careful." Resignation, maybe just a hint of fear, trips off her tongue in between syllables.

"Yeah," he agrees. He certainly wasn't careful. It's never been his strong suit. Twenty years ago she wouldn't have hesitated to remind him of that. Tonight she's either being kind or she's given up on him as a hopeless case.

"It's nice for me too, the yelling. At you in particular," she adds. The warmth has returned to her tone and, almost without thinking, he scoots closer to her as if attempting to soak it up, savor it while I last.

"Thanks... I think."

"I mean it. I don't have many good old friends to yell at anymore." It occurs to him that's what's different about her now, the loss. She'd had her share when he last saw her, sure. But Robin, Robert, probably others he doesn't know about - they've piled up on her since he last saw her, the weight wearing pieces of her away. He can sympathize, even if he's brought most of his own losses on himself.

"I heard about Robert," he offers, venturing a guess at where her mind has gone.

"Yeah, well don't you look sad about him," she commands. "I told him in no uncertain terms before I left that clinic that I was not going to allow him to die. He rarely listens to me, of course, but sooner or later he's going to figure out he can only annoy me so much when he's unconscious and that's going to bug him enough that he's going to wake up."

A low laugh escapes Frisco as his mind entertains a flood of memories of the two people he considered his best friends once upon a time. "I take it not much has changed between you two then."

"Oh, I don't know. We had some rough times there for a while but we mended fences. We owe most of that to Robin. It was so important to her that we be a family. I think she gave up on us ever getting back together but, even as dysfunctional as we were, she wanted us in her life. God, I'm grateful for that."

"It sounds like she was just as amazing as an adult as she was as a kid."

"Oh, even more. Even more. I was so proud of her. She was this brilliant doctor and a wonderful mother to little Emma. I don't know how she turned out that way after everything we put her through. You know we always - Robert and I, you and Felicia - we always had something we thought was more important, some mission. I was just telling someone that Robert and I treasured every minute we had with Robin. And we did. We made some wonderful memories. But we weren't there enough. We didn't make her feel safe."

Frisco opens up his mouth to object but Anna cuts him off before he has a chance. "No, we didn't. We tried but so much of what she went through was our fault in the first place because, you know, our priorities were all messed up. Mac knew what was important. He showed our girls there was someone who would always put them first and we owe him more than we can ever repay for that. Because they deserved it. They deserved so much more than they ever got from us." Anna swipes at her eyes, then lowers them seemingly to study the ground at her feet.

Frisco can't bear to respond to what she's said about Mac. The truth of her words stings him in a way that won't let up so he chooses to focus on something else. "From what I hear you didn't have much choice being separated from Robin all those years." He leaves the emunlike me/em unspoken but it pounds at the back of his skull nonetheless, an ever-present ache always made sharper in moments like this.

"Oh, Frisco, it doesn't matter. Even when I had choices I made the wrong ones. You know when I came back here a year ago I was finally taking some leave, finally taking some time to spend with Robin. And I was too late. I was always too late."

"Robin loved you more than anything. I can't believe that ever changed."

Anna laughs and the sound is a strange mixture of joy and bitterness. "Oh, it didn't. She was always much more forgiving than I deserved."

"Yeah," he says, his thoughts turning to Maxie and the way her voice wavered when she confided in him, the hopeful look in her eyes when he promised to make everything right, the weight of her against him when she finally let him hold her. "I'm learning Maxie might just be the same way."

"Don't you waste that. Now that you're back, don't you waste one minute." Anna says the words the way she used to issue orders, firm and no room for argument.

"I won't," he assures her. He hates himself for not being certain he means it, for the restlessness that's already starting to crowd him though he's only been in Port Charles a few days. It will ease, he's sure, once Felicia agrees to take him back. He'll be able to be what they deserve this time.

If he knows Anna at all - and this meeting has convinced him he does, even over twenty since he last saw her - she senses the uncertainty he can easily hide from others. It seems enough for her that she's said her piece and he's listened, though.

It occurs to him there aren't many people who would understand, but she's one of them, the way he breaks his own heart just as often as he breaks the hearts of the people who love him. His hand is resting on his knee and she reaches over to cover it with one of hers, fingers curling around his, then leans her head against his shoulder.

They sit and look silently out at the water.


End file.
